Business event resources

The TEDx Business License provides a unique opportunity for businesses to hosts private, employees-only events that leverage the TEDx brand to ignite company culture.

These events look very different from most TEDx events because they’re internal, private, staff-only events that can’t be promoted or advertised beyond the reach of your company’s internal platforms.

Please note that TEDx rules apply to a TEDx Business license, but with a few very important exceptions:

The following also applies to Business events:

Organizers of Business events should name their event based on the institution that they’re holding their event, followed by the city or neighborhood, like: TEDx(InstitutionName). If your institution is in multiple cities, any of which also host TEDx events, the name should be distinguished from those other TEDx events by adding the name of your city at the end, like: TEDx(InstitutionName)(city name).

Your audience will be the employees and staff of your organization and your business partners only.

Like standard TEDx events, Business events can have up to 100 guests. Only individuals who have attended an official TED conference can organize an event with more than 100 attendees.

A Business event is often themed around the industry your institution is a part of, but it should still be multidisciplinary and broad, and address a variety of topics. You’ll want to feature a diversity of speakers from across several disciplines. Learn more about themes to get an idea of what you want the focus of your event to be.

Like standard TEDx events, your Business event can be as brief as a couple of hours, and as long as one full day.

TEDx instigates a culture of innovation. When applying for a Business license, there is a fee applicable to for-profit organizations which supports the non-profit TEDx platform. Please contact michaelr@ted.com for pricing.

Whether your boss approaches you to host an event or you take the initiative to host one yourself, you may become or work with “employee-volunteers,” a hybrid role that can be both challenging and rewarding.

Your company may wish to see a return on investment for the resources it devotes to hosting a TEDx Business event. The feedback survey we provide to participants is a good starting point for collecting satisfaction data. Many Business event participants are inspired to join charities or non-profits, sometimes even founding their own. Others become more active in their local communities or else spark meaningful change in the workplace. Be sure to track this type of “soft impact” and document the positive changes flowing outside your existing community.

You may choose not to rely solely on standard corporate communications channels to get the word out about your event. Part of the beauty of Business events is its grassroots nature; listening to voices from the bottom-up can help make Business events more engaging and authentic than a typical corporate event.

The TEDx Business event page is one place you may publicly promote your event. Fill out the page exactly as you would a standard event, including uploading a single representative photo. The only difference is that you should not include links to any public-facing social media — that means no Twitter, Instagram, Flickr, Facebook, etc. accounts, and no YouTube channels. Remember: TEDx Business events are private.

Make sure, if you plan to bring in any external speakers, that they understand that their talk may not be distributed beyond the organization. Tell them: “Currently, TED rules prohibit from us distributing Business TEDx Talks beyond the walls of our organization, but your message will be heard by the [X] number of employees.”

Have any specific questions about the TEDx Business program? Email TEDx Partnerships Associate Michael Ryan at michaelr@ted.com.